Top 10 Common Website Design Mistakes to Avoid in the New Year

Have you ever stumbled onto that part of the internet that was created in the 1990s?

It was a wild and wacky time for website design. With just 23,500 websites in 1995, you could get away with a lot. We’re talking a bright orange background, a few photos stretched hideously into the wrong aspect ratio and all the headings lovingly created in Wordart.

Responsive websites are ones where the overall content, design, and information is the same on a desktop site as it is on the mobile site. The key difference is that it has been adapted to fit that particular screen size. This is the preferred format that overwhelmingly provides the best customer experience.

If you check out our website on your mobile you’ll see it’s been adapted to fit a portrait style screen. If you scroll down you can see our articles in a descending list. On an iPad, our website displays our articles in a long banner because there is room on a wider screen.

2. Your Website Load Time is Longer than 3 Seconds

In the 1990s even a website the size of a Word doc (we’re talking KB, not MB) took ages to load. And the average user, with their dial-up internet, expected to wait. Now, anything longer than 3 seconds and you’ve generally lost ‘em. Longer loading time means more loss on potential customers and making sales.

One of the easiest ways is to reduce the size of your site. Is there really any need for the highest resolution images when you could get away with something smaller? Have you got unnecessary embed videos that could be You-Tube links instead?

Pro-Tip: Our favorite tool to check site speed is GTmetrix. You can create a free account and get monthly site speed reports directly to your inbox!

3. Contact Information is Buried and Hard to Find

If you’re not going to put your contact info on the homepage then set up a specific page called ‘contact us’. This should be clearly labeled both on the menu and on the homepage.

Don’t bury it in a sub-menu e.g having to contact us as one of the options within ‘about us’.

Another common mistake is substituting a contact us form box for contact details. We get it, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to contact you. We also know you don’t want to redirect them away from the website to an email program. But people like choices. If you’re selling something, be as contactable as possible.

Give them an option of a form, an email, a phone number and even give them your business address with a link to Google Maps.

4. Your Website is not Secure (No HTTPS)

Most browsers are pretty hot on security these days. There’s an expectation that the big players are going to go out of their way to stop the average internet user from getting a virus.

If your site isn’t HTTP secure, there’s a chance some users might not even be able to access it because the browser won’t let them in and this, in turn, brings down inbound marketing efforts.

HTTPS essentially equals encryption. If you’re asking your users to input any data, including their email address in a contact us form, the data will be sent as text if you’re using bog standard HTTP. HTTPS scrambles and encrypts the text making it harder to be hacked.

5. Your Website 404 Page is Generic and Not Engaging

Ignoring your 404 pages and hoping no one notices just ‘ain’t going to cut it.

A giant sad face with an apology is one idea. Employing that irritating Microsoft paper clip from back in the day, asking whether you need some help with your 404, is another. Put a smile back on your customers’ faces, they will remember.

If you’re using a website building page like Weebly it has its own 404 error setting tool which should sort you out.

6. Too Many Different and Conflicting Fonts

Comic Sans, Times New Roman, Ariel. It’s tempting when you have so many choices, to just go for it and use them all. When it comes to webpage fonts though variety is not the spice of life. Unappealing fonts are one of the key web design mistakes to avoid.

Sans serif fonts don’t go with serif fonts and it’s jarring to the reader to keep chopping and changing. Either stick with a font that is easy on the eye or thinks about what font matches your business. If you’re a high-end printing business, trying to go for a formal, distinguished look, go for something that looks like handwritten calligraphy.

If you’re after a younger audience and you’re selling an interesting product try a font that looks like graffiti.

7. Your content isn’t Scannable

Here’s a shocking statement for you that Nobody reads what you write! Well… nobody reads your content properly even with the most intriguing headline written. Research by Neilson concluded that 84% of online readers scan rather than read word-by-word.

To combat this you need to write in an engaging way that is too short and to the point. We want to be scanner friendly. Here are some tips on how to do that while increasing your rankings.

Don’t be passive. Can you spot the difference between ‘The cat ran over the road’ and ‘the road was run over by the cat’? The first one is active: we’re in the moment with our friendly neighborhood feline, gasping for breath as we wonder if he’ll make it. The second one is passive. It’s as if the cat is irrelevant to the story. Be active.

The menu should also be the hub of your site. It should be the customer’s first port-of-call for answering their questions.

Pro-Tip: Do some simple keyword research on Google by typing in questions you think your customers would ask. You can then see how others are answering them and use that a starting point for creating content people will find helpful.

9. Generic Stock Images

Generic stock images make your site look just that, generic. Not to mention how expensive they are to purchase from a stock image site like Getty. Customers want to see the real-life products they are going to get.

If you’ve got an ‘about us’ page, put faces to the names of your employees. If you’re selling cars or motorbikes don’t just rely on generic glossy photos of different models. Instead give customers the chance to see exactly the car they are going to purchase, parked up on the drive of your business.

Beyond Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

Website design can seem complicated and these are just some common website design mistakes to avoid. If you are looking for Marketing Automation, Social Media and beyond, keep up with our blog for all of the latest content!

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